In article , Marc 182
writes:

I don't see why not, skipping like a stone on water, a rock could gain
enough lift to skip out, only to fall back and finally burn.


Stable aero lift over such a period would almost require that the 'roid be flat

& spinning like a skipping stone.
I am no rocket scientist but such an
entry path ought to be possible using just orbital mechanics and a drag vector
pushing directly against the progress of the rock relative to the atmosphere.
Sanity check, O gurus of gravitation! Does this work?
It comes in hot, almost
tangental to the top of the atmosphere, trajectory prior to entry is a
hyperbola
or parabola which intersects the top of the atmosphere. The atmosphere slows
it down of course, changing the orbit, but at perigee thru exit the curvature
of
the trajectory is still less than the curvature of the atmosphere, so it exits.

But it has now lost so much velocity that the _perigee_ of the modified
trajectory is now _just outside_ the atmosphere, the hypothetical _apogee_
well within the Earth. It arcs upward briefly and reenters finally, like a
V-2 research flight.